Investigating Different Educational Blog Characteristics to Support
Collaborative Learning based on Connectivism Learning Theory
Ahmed Mohamed Fahmy Yousef
a
, Radwa Amir Salah and Eman Mohammed Makram
Department of Education Technology, Faculty of Specific Education, Fayoum University, Egypt
Keywords: Blogs, Educational Blog, Computer Supported Collaborative Learning, Connectivism Theory.
Abstract: Higher education institutions have undertaken some approaches to increase learners’ collaboration skills for
opening up opportunities for new forms of knowledge formation. The emergence of the social
communications tools, particularly Web 2.0 technologies has provided access to the views and opinions of a
wide range of learners. Blogs have become one of the most popular social communication tools in the context
of Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL). Many educators are using blog for several reasons: the power of
self-editorship, the free space provided for learners to present their ideas, the quick and simple updates, the
open access to the learning topics and indexes. Connectivism learning theory emphasizes the importance and
role of networks and connections between learners. Considering that, the aim of the present research was to
investigate the relationship between different types of blog post characteristics (e.g. separate - sequential) and
comments length (e.g. detailed - concise) in order to support collaborative connections among learners. The
population of this research consists of blog posts and comments posted on CSlab platform that was designed
to introduce and encourage interaction among learners in the “Introduction to Computers” course offered by
Fayoum University, Egypt. The results of this study indicate that blogs have positive impact on increasing
collaborative learning activities. Moreover, that sequential blogs with concise comments are more influential
and facilitates interaction between peer and social communities of learners who received more comments.
1 INTRODUCTION
Connectivism is a learning theory provides new
opportunities for knowledge sharing namely,
information, skills, or expertise across the social
networks that were not possible before the digital age
(Siemens, 2017). The central aspect of connectivism
is connecting social networks nodes or information
sources in different geographic locations. Recently,
there has been renewed interest in social network
communication such as blogs and wikis in
educational context (Christie & Morris, 2019). Blogs
serve as a connectivist tool which increased users’
interactions in online content creation and reciprocal
ideas (Hughes, Swaminathan & Brooks, 2019). A
weblog is briefly defined as a personal website that
usually provides a free space to create, publish, and
discuss topics, ideas, and feedback with historical
entries representing a brief rule which often include
blogs’ summaries and some related links on the blog
as well as personal opinions and recommended
a
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0522-0734
resources (Mitchell, Friedrich, & Appleget, 2019;
Yousef & Rößling, 2013).
There is a broad consensus among Technology
Enhanced Learning (TEL) researchers which
recognizes educational blogs as a powerful learning
resource in online teaching activities (Sergio &
Forsythe, 2018). Indeed, there are several reasons
why educators prefer to utilize weblogs with learners.
The first reason is to provide a real-time interaction
for student communications. Usually, the teacher is
the only person who reads participants’ submissions,
e.g. homework, project report, essays, and other
annotated bibliographies; and this reading may focus
mostly on form, rather on content. With weblogs,
learners can find the free atmosphere for providing
opinions and improving their skills. Other common
reasons are that learners can share files, materials and
notes. Moreover, increasing a sense of community in
an e-learning platform may help introverted learners
to participate in the in-class activities (Garcia,
Moizer, Wilkins & Haddoud, 2019).
118
Yousef, A., Salah, R. and Makram, E.
Investigating Different Educational Blog Characteristics to Support Collaborative Learning based on Connectivism Learning Theory.
DOI: 10.5220/0009425601180129
In Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2020) - Volume 2, pages 118-129
ISBN: 978-989-758-417-6
Copyright
c
 2020 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved

Specifically, educational blogs have many
features, such as self-editorship, free space to present
learners’ ideas, quick and simple updates, open access
to the learning topics and indexes (Smidt, Wheeler,
Peralta, & Bell, 2018). Blogs provide opportunities
for the learners to present their ideas, feedbacks and
discussions on the social communication networks.
Moreover, learners can be encouraged to discuss what
interests them and can post their personal comments
and feedback on other peers' blogs (Udosen & Upula,
2019).
It has commonly been assumed that, the wide
variety of comments on blogs can expand the
significant influence of specific blog posts, as the
learners not only read the original article, but also the
comments written by others (Blom, 2017). However,
there have been no controlled studies which studying
and assessing students’ engagement and the impact of
blogging characteristics on students’ learning. The
specific objective of this study was to investigate the
relationship between different types of blog post
characteristics (e.g. separate - sequential) and
comments length (e.g. detailed - concise) in order to
support collaborative connections among learners.
The remaining part of the paper has been divided into
four parts, begins by research design including
question and hypothesis. It will then go on to discuss
the methodology used for this study. The design
section begins by laying out the theoretical
dimensions of the research design and looks at how
the educational blogs were designed for this
investigation. The final section presents the findings
of the research, includes the discussion and
conclusion, as well as the limitations and suggestions
for further research.
2 RESEARCH DESIGN
Based on the aforementioned TEL literature,
blogging can be seen as an interactive social learning
environment. However, educational blogs are facing
some significant challenges. Quadir et al., (2019) for
instance, reported that 40.7% of the learners have
never participated in blogging activity, and 70% of all
participants shared only one post per week. These
findings are in agreement with Stone’s (2012)
findings which analyzed 505 blogs and showed that
only 57.1% of the total entries (885) were actually
posted by learners. This number indicates that not all
learners completed each of the 15 blogs task
requested of them. Considering this, the current
experimental study attempts to enhance learners’ use
of blogs in social knowledge construction. The
importance and originality of this study are that it
explores to what degree do different blog design
characteristics (e.g. separate - sequential) and
comments length (e.g. detailed - concise) influence
learners’ engagement based on connectivism theory?
2.1 Research Hypothesis
The population of this research consists of blog posts
and comments posted on CSlab platform. The system
was designed by the researchers to introduce and
encourage interaction among learners in the
“Introduction to Computers” course offered by
Fayoum University. The cohort was divided into four
groups according to the different types of blog post
characteristics (e.g. separate - sequential) and
comments length (e.g. detailed - concise) as
illustrated in table 1.
Table 1: Describing the characteristics of the sample.
Group ID Blog characteristics Comments length
Blog A Separate Detailed
Blog B Sequential Detailed
Blog C Separate Concise
Blog D Sequential Concise
According to this sample the current study set out
with four main hypotheses as follow:
H1. The different blog design characteristics are
significantly affecting the number of comments.
H2. There were no statistically significant differences
in the parameters of blog post characteristics
(separate - sequential p<0.05).
H3. There were no statistically significant differences
in the parameters of comments length (detailed -
concise p<0.05).
H4. There were no statistically significant differences
between the groups in the parameters of blog post
characteristics and comments length (p<0.05).
2.2 Research Methodology
This investigation takes the form of a case-study to
obtain an in-depth analysis of the different types of
blog characteristics as illustrated in figure 1.
Figure 1: Case study method adapted from (Yin 2017).
Investigating Different Educational Blog Characteristics to Support Collaborative Learning based on Connectivism Learning Theory
119

3 CSLab DESIGN
The following part of this paper moves on to describe
in greater detail how we designed the CSlab as a blog
platform to foster an ethos of participation among
learners. CSLab was prepared by adapting the
procedure of the User Experience (UX) approach
according to ISO-13407-1999 schema (Standard, I. S.
O., 1999; Hassenzahl, 2008).
Figure 2: The human-centred design process, ISO-13407-
1999 (Standard, I. S. O., 1999).
3.1 CSLab Requirements
In the requirements elicitation for an effective blog
platform, we conducted a literature review that
considered the broader implications of criteria for
designing and delivering the interrelatedness of social
and technical aspects, then we conducted a prototype,
and interviewed potential users.
3.1.1 Literature Review
Surveys such as that conducted by Kim (2008)
reviews prior studies and develops a model for the use
of blogs in educational contexts. The review revealed
four key requirements including:
a) Interactivity
b) Open blog system
c) Visualization data
d) Decentralized environment
Furthermore, some cross-sectional studies suggest
an association links between pedagogical and
technological criteria (Yousef, Rößling, 2013). Their
study outcomes include the final list of blog criteria
which are classified into 6 domains and 80 indicators,
which are relevant to the current study. Including:
a) Pedagogical dimension (Consists of:
Instructional design and Content quality
domains).
b) Technological dimension (Consists of: Usability
and Multimedia communications domains).
c) Administration dimension (Consists of:
Authority and Privacy domains).
3.1.2 Paper Prototype
Paper prototyping is a widely method used for the
initial design of user interface design (Snyder, 2003).
In order to, appropriate allocation of function
between user and CSLab system, author visualize
concepts and ideas of CSLab system, and share them
as a paper prototype with learners to test out its design
before moving on to code. Figure 3. illustrates the
paper prototype for the user interface and navigation
functions.
Figure 3: CSLab interface paper prototype.
Before the test starts, we gave learners as the main
user target a brief description of the main feature and
core idea about the CSLab as an integrated social
networking and collaborative learning tool. Then, we
asked learners to process concrete tasks with the
prototype. We did the paper prototype test with 21
learners from the first-year degree program, were
they randomly selected for the purpose of this study.
To get the most reliable answers as feedback we
delivered this question to our target users “What's
your overall impression of the interface? The overall
response to this question was very positive as can be
seen from the data in Figure 4, around 86 % of the
respondents answered either “essential” or “useful”.
“Useless” was one of the options but no one chose it.
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Figure 4: Usefulness of CSLab interface paper prototype.
Nielsen (2001) recommended using a very simple
usability measure for target user: Success Rate. This
usability metrics is defined as the percentage of tasks
users perform properly. For this purpose, we further
conducted Interactive Process Interviews (IPI) with
target users to determine which functionalities they
are expecting from the comment section, sharing
buttons plugins, and learning analytics in their blogs.
These interviews involved seven female and six male
students who were between the ages of 18 and 20
years and all of them had previous experience with
web design and social media interactions. In this
CSLab prototyping interview we gave five main tasks
to the learners:
a) Plan your blog post by choosing a topic and
post it.
b) Write comment on your colleagues’ post,
either write a draft in a single session or
gradually write a few words about its parts.
c) Understand all the instruction and be able to
select an appropriate button.
d) Edit images directly within blog posts.
e) Customize your post's layout on mobile so
that it looks great on any device e.g. tablet,
mobile or computer.
According to Nielsen (2001) the usability metrics test
is considered success and can support learners to
achieve the objectives of CSLab prototyping if
Success Rate > 50 %. In total, we observed 65
attempts from thirteen students to perform the CSLab
blog tasks. Of those attempts, 53 were successful, 12
were partially successful, and none was failed. Using
Nielsen’s user usability measurement, we got Success
Rate around, 81.50 %. The most important point
which stands out from this usability metrics test is that
learners focus more in a method to keep track of
interesting articles for later blog posts. Moreover,
they highlighted that the blog tool should supports
mobile devices like the iPhone, iPad and Android.
3.2 CSLab Implementation
The following part of this paper moves on to describe
in greater detail the implementation of CSLab. A
presentation of the technologies used in the
development of CSLab will be followed by a detailed
description of the different modules and their
underlying functionalities.
3.2.1 CSLab Interface
The main task is to create the look and feel of the
CSLab interface, and to utilize a layout that is in line
with the design criteria and requirements defined in
section 3. The CSLab uses multiple JavaScript
frameworks and the Node.js platform for
implementing the application’s client-side and
server-side logic and it makes it possible for learners
to create real-time interactions.
Figure 5: CSLab interface.
3.2.2 CSLab Blogging Component
In this study, we designed some blogging component
to increase interactivity as instances in which the
different blog design characteristics promote learners
to comment and share ideas with their peers as shown
in Figure 6. The main component that often leads to
an increase in traffic is commenting. Thus, CSLab has
built-in commenting system in order to engage
learners by sharing blog posts and replying to
comments and allow learners to freely received
feedback by clicking on the “Blog Options” tab and
checking the “Comments” box before publishing
post. Then, through comments, students can break
Investigating Different Educational Blog Characteristics to Support Collaborative Learning based on Connectivism Learning Theory
121

down the barriers of shame. The following lines is
sample code for the commenting system.
}
.blog-detail-comments . comments {
width:100%
}
.blog-detail-comments . comments>span,
.blog-detail-comments . comments>span>iframe {
width:100%!important
}
}
Figure 6: CSLab Blogging Component.
On top of sharing your content, learners can share
their comments and discussions through social media
e.g. Facebook, Twitter. Moreover, in respect to
privacy criteria, CSLab accept comments only from
registered learners or those who are sinning in with
their Google account because Google validates the
accounts it creates. Thus, allowing learners who have
Google accounts leave comments can help ensure that
we get comments from humans rather than spammers.
Furthermore, CSLab is supported by learning analytic
component to track student activities and generate
statistics of comments traffic with the purpose of
continuously improving the learning environment.
3.3 CSLab Usability Evaluation
According to the International Standards
Organization (ISO) web site, usability is defined as
"the extent to which a site can be used by a specified
group of users to achieve specified goals with
effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a
specified context of use" (Nielsen, 2001). The
purpose of blog usability in this study is how
educational blog layout looks like? As well as, how
learners can easily find information on blog content?
Usability evaluation refers to a scientific
procedure undertaken to make a discovery, test of
CSLab by representative users. We conducted a
thorough usability evaluation of CSLab in terms of
loading speed and functionality.
3.3.1 CSLab Speed
This section has analysed the CSLab speed from
multiple locations around the globe using real
browsers (IE, Firfox and Chrome) and at real
consumer connection speeds as shown in Figure 7.
Figure 7: CSLab performance evaluation.
The most interesting aspect of this figure is that
CSLab is well designed and total loading time is
around only 3s which refers to high speed of its
elements (pages, images, other file formats etc.)
which are downloaded or displayed on the learner’s
web browser.
3.3.2 System Usability Scale (SUS)
User-focused design helps us to prioritize the learners
experience to help make the CSLab platform as
usable as possible. The System Usability Scale (SUS)
is a 10-item questionnaire that can be answered on a
five-point Likert scale of "Strongly Disagree" to
"Strongly Agree." (Brooke, 1996). We used this
questionnaire as a general usability evaluation for the
CSLab. By the end of the survey period, data had been
collected from 21 individuals, are summarised in
Figure 8. The result refers to the high acceptance rate
around 80%.
Figure 8: SUS Interpreting Scores.
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4 CASE STUDY
The main goal of the current study was to investigate
the relationship between different types of blog post
characteristics (e.g. separate - sequential) and
comments length (e.g. detailed - concise) to foster
student collaboration in “Introduction to Computers”
course offered by Fayoum University, Egypt. This
course provides a general introduction to computers,
operating systems, software applications, hardware
and data communications.
4.1 Learning Strategy
Teaching team are applied connectivist blog learning
model within a blended learning method which
combines, online educational blogs where learners
would work together to complete different activities
and had the chance to comment and interact with their
peers as illustrated in figure 9 (Garcia, Brown, &
Elbeltagi, 2013). With opportunity for weekly face-
to-face lectures. This learning strategy enables
learner's control of the learning environment as they
post and create their own connections, and the shift in
the role of the teacher as students become accountable
to one another (Garcia, Elbeltagi, Brown, & Dungay,
2015).
Figure 9: Connectivist educational blog model (Garcia,
Brown, & Elbeltagi, 2013).
4.2 Study Sample
The initial sample consisted of 200 students, and they
were divided into four groups equally (refer to Table
1). Each group collaborated with a different method
and practice as we will discuss in detail in the
following sections.
4.2.1 First Group: Blog A
The first group of 50 students was interacted through
“Separate blogs with Detailed comments”. In this
group comments were restricted to 100 words and
learners are asked to post their comments separately
as standalone posts, as shown in Figure 10.
Figure 10: Separate blogs with detailed comments.
4.3 Second Group: Blog B
The second group of 50 students was interacted
through “Sequential blogs with Detailed
comments”. In this group comments were restricted
to 100 words and learners are asked to respond to
comments by posted by their peers. Peer response is
a form of collaborative learning in blogs where
learners can respond to specific parts they don't
understand in the original post or comments as
presents in Figure 11.
Figure 11: Sequential blogs with detailed comments.
4.4 Third Group: Blog C
The third group of 50 students was interacted through
“Separate blogs with Concise comments”. In this
group comments were restricted to only 20 words and
learners are asked to post their individual comments
separately as standalone posts, as shown in Figure 12.
Investigating Different Educational Blog Characteristics to Support Collaborative Learning based on Connectivism Learning Theory
123

Figure 12: Separate blogs with concise comments.
4.5 Forth Group: Blog D
The fourth group of 50 students was interacted
through “Sequential blogs with Concise
comments”. The comments were restricted to only 20
words and leaners were asked to interact to their
peer’s post and comments as shown in Figure 13.
Figure 13: Sequential blogs with concise comments.
5 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
This section presents the results of this investigation.
The first part of this section describes the sample and
shows the correlations between the independent
variables. Section 5.2 introduces the data of learning
analysis. Section 5.3 describes the analysis in this
study, namely the relationship between different
types of blog post characteristics (e.g. separate -
sequential) and comments length (e.g. detailed -
concise).
5.1 Sample and Independent Variables
The population of this study consists of blog posts and
comments posted on various CSLab blogs. The initial
sample of this investigation consisted of 200 learners,
while only 53 learners who completed all tasks and
were interactive throughout the 21-day period and
involved in this analysis as described in table 2.
Table 2: Describing the characteristics of the final sample.
Group Blog characteristics comments length N
Blog A
Separate Detailed 13
Blog B
Sequential Detailed 13
Blog C
Separate Concise 10
Blog D
Sequential Concise 17
5.2 Learning Analytics
In order to evaluate the objective evidence for
students’ collaborative engagement in their blogging,
the authors applied learning analytics for reporting
data about learners’ activities for purposes of
understanding and optimizing collaborative learning.
For the purpose of research ethics, all data analyzed
is used only for this study and will not be used for
other purposes. The authors ensured that the
collection of such information is done without
breaching the right to privacy.
It was hypothesised that, H1. The different blog
design characteristics are significantly affecting the
number of comments.
Figure 14: The number of comments on the blog post.
The chart above shows results obtained from the
system regarding number of comments in each blog.
Closer inspection of the chart indicates that, Group D,
which interacted through “Sequential blogs with
Concise comments” has more comments and
engagement. Further learning analysis statistics are
shown in Table 3.
What is interesting about the data in this table is
that, Blog D, obtained high average score at (64)
comments with low standard deviation at (17.38).
This indicate that, there was a significant positive
correlation between sequential blogs characteristics
with concise comments in attracting more follower
and increase learner’s engagement rates and make
them post more comments. Thus, we can confirm that
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there is a negative correlation indicates that separate
blog posts are more negative and sequential blog
posts are more positive in connection with shorter
comments.
Table 3: Descriptive data analysis.
Group ID
Comments Statistics
Sum
Min
Max
Average
Std.Dev.
Blog A 156 10 73 31 25.5284
Blog B 200 9 71 40 26.7301
Blog C 196 20 60 39 14.5499
Blog D 322 39 88 64 17.3868
5.3 Effectiveness Evaluation
The second aim of this study was to investigate the
effects of different types of blog post characteristics
(e.g. separate - sequential) and comments length (e.g.
detailed - concise) on collaborative learning. For the
purpose of analysis, this research has designed its
own questionnaire for user evaluation. This
questionnaire contains of 24 sentence concerning
collaborative learning activities e.g. teamwork
learning, communication and shared knowledge
acquisition. A 5-point Likert scale was used from (1)
strongly disagree to (5) strongly agree as shown in
Appendix A.
Items of this questionnaire are based on relevant
studies and discussions with TEL scholars (Yousef,
2015a). Considering reliability of the questionnaire,
we used statistical item analysis of Cronbach's alpha
to identify which items can be retained and which
need to be discarded. This result was significant at the
procedure output has an overall raw alpha of .78
(rounded from .77615 and N = 12 expert) which is
good considering that .70 is the Cronbach's alpha
value for being acceptable.
5.3.1 Hypothesis Verification
Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS
software (version 20) to test the research hypothesis.
The statistics used are:
 Parametric statistics for calculating statistical
differences between averages.
 The Significance of F-test shows that whether all
independent variables (free) have a combined
effect on the dependent variable (bound).
 The two-way ANOVA compares the mean
differences between groups that have been split
on two independent variables on the dependent
variable (Girden, 1992).
Of the study population, 53 subjects completed
and returned the questionnaire. The overall response
to this questionnaire was very positive as described in
Table 4.
Table 4: Statistical averages for collaborative learning.
Collaborative Learning
Blogs Characteristics
Sum
Separate Sequential
Comments Length
Concise
Average 105.6 104.2 104.9
Std.Dev. 6.6 5.3 5.95
N 10 17 27
Detailed
Average 15.5 103.07 104.3
Std.Dev. 6.09 9.1 7.59
N 13 13 26
Sum
Average 105.5 103.6 104.5
Std.Dev. 6.3 7.2 6.75
N 23 30 53
In response to the question “to what degree do
different blog design characteristics (e.g. separate -
sequential) and comments length (e.g. detailed -
concise) influence learners’ engagement based on
connectivism theory?” It can be seen from the data in
Table 4 that, a majority of learners (86%) indicated
that CSLab blogs has been useful in their learning and
communications. Specifically, blog discussions
support the core concepts of trust, sharing, belonging
and respect (refer to Appendix A).
Moreover, the ability to post questions and notes
provides more solutions to increase the interactivity
with learning and encourage learners in collaborative
learning by creating threaded discussions around
common points of interests.
Figure 15: Number of comments overtime.
Investigating Different Educational Blog Characteristics to Support Collaborative Learning based on Connectivism Learning Theory
125

In Figure.15 there is a clear trend of increasing
comments in CSLab over time. This also accords
with our earlier observations, which showed that,
stakeholders become more engaged when they are
feeling comfortable to the system (Yousef, 2015b).
Furthermore, debate continues about the best
strategies for knowledge construction in different
learning contexts from varying perspectives. Figure
16. Shows the distributed comments and links among
learners in four groups. As can we recognize CSLab
blogging system as a behavior of social knowledge
construction, and the use of blogs in online
educational settings has the potential to encourage
knowledge sharing activities among students.
Figure 16: Distributed comments and links in CSLab.
Turning now to the experimental evidence on the
correlation between different types of blog post
characteristics (e.g. separate - sequential) and
comments length (e.g. detailed - concise). Thus, a
two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) is used to
determine if two different factors have an effect on a
measured variable or not as shown in Table 5.
With respect to the second research hypothesis,
the results obtained from table 5, shows that, F =
0.653 for blog characteristics averages as can be seen
in the first line. That means we accepted the research
hypothesis, there were no statistically significant
differences of blog post characteristics (separate -
sequential p<0.05). Further, we applied Eta squared
of the total variance in a blog post characteristic
(separate - sequential p<0.05) associated with one or
more main effects, errors or interactions in ANOVA.
To confirm this, (ETA squared) was calculated as its
value reached (0.163) and this expresses the absence
of a strong influence of the independent variable blog
post characteristics (separate - sequential) on the
dependent variable (collaborative learning) and thus
accepts the second hypothesis.
Table 5: The two-way ANOVA compares the mean
differences between groups.
Variance TSS DF F Sig h2
Blogs
Characteristics
148.53 - 0.653 Not Sig 0.163
Comments
Length
686.66 - 0.313 Not Sig 0.111
Relationship 53.049 3 0.376 Not Sig 0.150
Error variance 2306.08 49 - - -
total variance 2359.13 52 - - -
Turning now to the experimental evidence on the
effect of comment length on increasing collaborative
learning, as the third hypothesis states that, there were
no statistically significant differences in the
parameters of comments length (detailed - concise
p<0.05). The results from table 5, shows that f = 0.313
with ETA squared at 0.111, which indicated no
significant difference between the two groups was
evident.
In the final part of this analysis we investigated
whether, there any statistically significant differences
between the groups in the parameters of blog post
characteristics and comments length (p<0.05). The
results from table 5, it can be seen that by far that F =
0.376 and its ETA squared = 0.150. This confirms the
absence of an interaction effect between blog post
characteristics and comments length in developing
collaborative learning. Thus, authors are accepted all
research hypothesis.
A possible explanation for this might be that, the
connectivism learning theory, which are recognize
learning as an active process of creating meaning
from different experiences. this learning theory
provide a useful account of how information can be
simply transmitted to learners through blogs and other
social media interaction, regardless the characteristics
of it.
In addition, another possible explanation for this
is that, learning in such systems using blogs are
becoming increasingly decentralized and more open.
Hendrick and Kleiner (2001) labelled the
decentralized open system as “a work system has
permeable boundaries exposed to the environment in
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which they exist”. The advent of Web 2.0 underlines
this trend, by increase interaction among users via
external tools (e.g. blogs, wikis, and forums). Downes
(2004) reviewed the literature of educational use of
blogs and determined some social benefits and
opportunities for learners such as: a) reflect on their
posts, b) engage in writing for significant time
intervals, and c) trigger long dialogue with their
readers leading to new writing cycles.
5.4 Study Recommendation
There are several limitations to this study. First, the
most important limitation lies in the fact that, we only
choose 200 learners as participants in a limited
learning time. Secondly, the results of the current
research have shown that the rate of effective
blogging participation did not exceed 27% as shown
in Figure 17. Despite its exploratory nature, this study
offers some insight into how to improve educational
blogs design. In the following lines we will give some
recommendations based on lessons learned in this
investigation.
Figure 17: Active Vs. Passive participation in CSLab.
In general, therefore, it seems that information
presented in blogs is one of the important content
aspects that influence learners understanding.
Therefore, blog content should be free from spelling,
grammatical, syntax errors. Moreover, lessons should
be organized and presented in logically manner.
Blogs must be written at a level appropriate to the
normal reader and content should be informative
(Conole 2013; Ong and Cheung, 2015; Rieh 2002).
Furthermore, reading through computer is tiring
and about 25 % differently than reading from books
(Nielsen 2003; 2004). Thus, instructional designers
should focus on scan ability criteria such as paragraph
which should be preferably not more than six
sentences. Also, the typography and skim layout
should be used, for example, bold fonts and
highlighted words (Powell 2000).
According to Andergassen et al (2009) learners
have decided not to blog because of feeling that their
privacy is invaded. To protect learners’ privacy in
online blogs Gongola et al. (2014) gives an account
of using private blog sites; Cetto et al. (2014) supports
the idea of raising privacy awareness among users. In
addition, we argue that integrated blogs in the
university learning system can find the key to protect
learners and provide a safe learning environment.
The World Wide Web provides an open access to
a wide range of information in variety of domains
than ever before (i.e. traditional print world). TEL
researchers used its documents and media that are
useful for their teaching and learning. However,
ensuring quality and authority of Web information
has been a big challenge due to the lack of quality
control mechanism for the Web resources (Yousef
and Sunar, 2015). The question now arises as to how
learners as well as teachers ensure the quality and
authority of education blogs content. The following
recommendations might help in differentiating good
learning resources from those that are not
(Papaeconomou and Zijlema 2008; Rieh 2002;
Yousef and Rößling 2013).
 Learner/teacher must reference their blog
information.
 Comments should be reviewed in order to verify
its information.
 Use Open Educational Resources (OER) from
trusted providers.
 Use learning materials under the Creative
Commons licenses to avoid copyright issues.
Finally, many learners attached hyperlinks to their
blogs to share web sites that have good content related
to the discussion topic. However, many links may
make the blog more complex. In addition, it is
important that learners be able to find the navigation
feature easily (i.e., button, menu, search box). Thus,
from the usability perspective the navigation tools
should be located in the same position on each blog
page.
6 CONCLUSIONS
In the past decade, a number of studies have sought
to focus on the use of social network communication
such as blogs and wikis in educational context.
Connectivism is a learning theory that explains
learning as a network of interactions through social
tools e.g. blogs, wikis and forums. One purpose of
this research was to examine the effect of different
blog post design on the number of comments. The
second aim of this study was to investigate the
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127

relationship between different types of blog post
characteristics (e.g. separate - sequential) and
comments length (e.g. detailed - concise) in order to
support collaborative connections among learners.
CSLab platform was designed to host course blogs
and provided learners with a free space to create,
publish, and discuss learning topics.
One of the more significant findings to emerge
from this study is that, that sequential blogs with
concise comments are more influential and receive
more comments. The second major finding was that
the four groups obtained high level of collaborations
during their learning. Which indicate that blog
interaction increasing the collaboration among
learners regardless its characteristics.
If the debate is to be moved forward, a better
understanding of the relationship between learning
style and blog post characteristics needs to be
investigated. Moreover, a further study is suggested
into understand through in-depth qualitative analysis
on how students perceive their construction of
knowledge while using their blog discussion.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors acknowledge the infrastructure and
support of the faculty of specific education, Fayoum
University, Egypt. Moreover, we appreciate the
referee’s valuable and profound comments on the
collaborative questionnaire used for this study. The
authors also, would like to present a special thanks for
the first-year college students in education
technology department 2019-2020, who kindly
completed this investigation.
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APPENDIX A
No Item
1 Blogs helped me to gain the skill to collaborate with my
colleagues.
2 Blogs helped me to gain effective communication skills
by exchanging information between individuals
3 Blogging helped me to gain some negotiation and
persuasion skills
4 Blogging helped me to respect the opinions of my
colleagues
5 Blogging has helped me to develop a sense of
responsibility to others
6 Blogging helped lower selfishness among team members
7 Blogging helped me freely express my opinions and
beliefs
8 My opinion contributed to the enrichment of the panel
discussions
9 Blogging helped to reinforce the teamwork concept of
team members
10 My active blogging posts helped me acquire and
reformulate brainstorming skills
11 Participants (interactive interactions) with blogs
contributed to a flow of ideas between colleagues and
enriched solutions to the problems raised.
12 Course blogs helped me carry out group assignments
during hands-on training by preparing well for them.
13 Participating in discussions during the study helped me
build social relationships with new colleagues.
14 Discussions helped increase interaction between you and
your colleagues.
15 Blogs helped break the barrier of shame for some
students by sharing and exchanging ideas and opinions
16 Blogs helped to develop higher-order thinking skills such
as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation
17 Blogs of free discussion helped to develop self-
confidence and sense of self
18 My active blogging post helped me gain technical error
recognition skills in my colleagues ’writings
19 The blogs helped evaluate the opinions of my peers and
discuss their ideas.
20 My colleagues' opinions during the discussion made it
possible to discover alternative solutions to their
problems themselves
21 Blogging helped to understand the different aspects of
the course.
22 Positive comments among colleagues helped to acquire
positive behaviors for teamwork
23 Participations among students across blogs contributed
to the development of their initiative values in social
situations
24 Blogs contributed to encouraging students to exchange
ideas about specific paragraphs to understand them
adequately
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